eSubmission News and Updates
NIH eSubmission Items of Interest — December 18, 2007
Testing the Waters, then Jumping In the Adobe Pool
Fourteen Federal agencies already have jumped into the Adobe pool and collectively have posted over 100 Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) with Adobe packages. Although none of these Adobe packages use the SF424 (R&R) form set, it does show progress in the transition to Adobe and exercises the new Grants.gov 2007 system that will be used for all SF424 form families. Grants.gov is working on revisions to the SF424 (R&R) forms that are needed prior to our posting Adobe packages.
NIH is scheduled to complete testing of the revised forms in early 2008 and plans to test the Adobe waters with a few production FOAs in the spring. The large, standing submission dates for February and March 2008 will use PureEdge as previously indicated. However, if all goes well with the initial NIH FOAs to use Adobe packages, a full transition to Adobe will quickly follow. Grants.gov is encouraging agencies to complete their transitions to the new Adobe forms by early summer. NIH fully supports Grants.gov’s transition to Adobe and, as long as the forms and systems perform correctly, NIH will make every effort to meet the summer transition target. It will take us all a little while to get used to the new packages, but, before long, we’ll be glad we jumped in the Adobe pool.
What can you do now to prepare? Adobe Reader version 8.1.1 will be needed to complete and submit the new Adobe forms. You will want to make sure everyone that needs to work with the forms has this specific version of the Adobe viewer. For some of you, this step will be pretty straight forward. For those of you who need a different version of Adobe to run other enterprise tools or who need to go through your IT departments to download software, this step will take some time and planning. The Grants.gov site has links to the viewer download and system requirements on the Apply for Grants page.
A little perspective…the transition to Adobe-based forms is a change in the tool used for Grants.gov’s forms-based solution. We will be using the same SF424 (R&R) form set and the same guidelines for electronic application content and submission. We already made the big transition from the paper PHS 398 to the electronic SF424 (R&R) through Grants.gov…a change of tools will require some agency and applicant adjustments, but it isn’t anything we can’t handle with appropriate planning and coordination. We still are working with Grants.gov on our full transition plan and we’ll keep you posted through the listservs and NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts as it unfolds.
Still Need to Use Grants.gov’s 2006 System for Now
We have posted a reminder to all system-to-system electronic application solution providers that the Grants.gov 2006 system must be used to submit applications to NIH, AHRQ, FDA, and NIOSH (NOT-OD-08-020). This notice has no impact on applicants that use Grants.gov’s PureEdge forms (all submissions through the PureEdge forms automatically use the Grants.gov 2006 system).
Excerpt from notice…
Some applicant institutions have partnered with commercial Service Providers or have created their own tools to submit application data directly from their internal systems to Grants.gov without using Grants.gov’s PureEdge forms. Grants.gov has provided the ability for these system-to-system users to send their applications through the new Grants.gov 2007 system. However, application images resulting from submissions to the Grants.gov 2007 system do not display the complete application information needed for review and they cannot be accepted. The eRA team and Grants.gov are working together to address the identified issues and are confident that a solution will be available soon.
Update to July Item of Interest - Submitting Subaward Budgets That Are Not Active for All Periods of the Prime
(See July 25, 2007 Items of Interest regarding subaward budgets)
On Thursday, December 13, the eRA eXchange software used to process electronic applications was updated. The update included an improved method of calculating the direct cost limits for budget periods (excluding subaward Facilities & Administration Costs) for applications that have subaward budgets that are not active for all periods of the prime. The system will now match up the subaward and prime budget period dates for the purposes of this calculation. It is important that the subaward budget period start and end dates exactly match the corresponding budget period dates listed in the prime budget. If the dates do not match, the system will assume consecutive subaward budget periods starting with 1 for the calculation.
The entire eRA team wishes you a happy holiday season!
Sheri Cummins
Communications Coordinator
NIH Office of Extramural Research
Division of Communications & Outreach
Contractor, LTS
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